Ethiopia's Capital, Once Promising, Finds Itself in Crisis

By MARC LACEY

Published: November 14, 2005

This city fancies itself the capital of Africa, the crossroads of the continent, a refined refuge where African leaders gather to address the crises in unruly places like Sudan, Ivory Coast and Congo.

The city's most powerful resident, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, has been deemed one of Africa's new generation of leaders, a rebel turned democrat and darling of the international donors.

But after a months-long political standoff that has turned increasingly bloody, Ethiopia's capital has joined Africa's more ignominious places, becoming the latest continental crisis point to attract the attention of the African Union, which has its headquarters here. Mr. Meles now finds himself criticized as a dictator, not a democrat.

''If the situation deteriorates here, it's a major symbolic failure for the African Union,'' said Abdul Mohammed, an analyst with the Inter-African Group who huddled with African Union leaders on Nov. 4 to discuss the Ethiopia crisis. ''This is the home of the A.U. This is occurring in the A.U.'s backyard.''

Quite literally. The African Union's crisis management team did not have to consult a map to find the latest hot spot on this continent. It could look out the window.

Ethiopian security forces fired on stone-throwing protesters in the streets around the African Union's headquarters in early November. Tires were burned in the street. The lot next door to the organization was turned into a makeshift detention center as thousands of opposition supporters were rounded up by the government.

Many have been released, but treason charges have been filed against some, and others are being held in rugged conditions outside the capital.

The discord stems from a democratic transition that has stumbled and fallen flat. The government called parliamentary elections in May and, unlike in the last two elections in 1995 and 2000, actually allowed opposition candidates a chance to campaign.

The election was considered a test of the fledging democracy in Africa's second most populous country. The results were a shock.

The opposition swept seats in Addis Ababa and finished strongly in other urban areas. Little-known candidates managed to oust several powerful government ministers, a sign that many voters had lost confidence in the governing party.

''The beauty of democracy is people have started to tell even the ruling party they can vote it out if it does not address its concerns,'' said Bereket Simon, a top aide to Mr. Meles, putting the best possible face on the surprise election results.

After weeks of controversy over those results, the government announced that it had won 296 seats in the 547-member Parliament, with the opposition taking 176 seats, far fewer than the opposition believed it was due.

Unused to sharing power, the ruling party also hastily changed parliamentary rules so that only a party with 51 percent of the seats could raise an issue for discussion, infuriating the opposition.

When opposition supporters took to the streets in June to claim vote-rigging by the government, security forces opened fire, killing about 40 of them.

The African Union stayed silent, drawing the wrath of opposition supporters who accused it of cozying up to the Ethiopian political elite and acting like the old, ineffective Organization of African Unity, which rarely criticized member governments, no matter how repressive.

Ethiopia's political crisis blew up again on Nov. 1 while the African Union held a summit meeting here. Opposition supporters organized a low-key protest to attract the attention of the visiting African leaders: motorists were told to toot their horns from 8 to 8:30 a.m. for three days in a row.

But heavily armed soldiers were on the streets. Tensions were high and clashes broke out. Soon, soldiers were firing on demonstrators, who were heaving rocks, smashing vehicles and burning tires in the road.

The African Union condemned the violence this time and asked Mr. Meles to explain how so many people -- 40 or more in the latest bout of violence -- died. The chairman, former President Alpha Oumar Konar?f Mali, has met repeatedly with Mr. Meles to discuss the crisis.

Mr. Meles blames the opposition for the violence, accusing it even of hurling grenades at security forces. Infuriated by the protests against his rule, Mr. Meles has accused the opposition of trying to topple the government through demonstrations, which he says he will not allow.

To control the dissent, soldiers and police officers have swept through the city, arresting the top leadership of the main opposition group, the Coalition of Unity and Development. Similar sweeps have resulted in young men being taken away from neighborhoods where trouble has broken out.

''What we have detained is people who have tried to overthrow the duly constituted government, and that in my view is treason under the laws of the country,'' Mr. Meles has told the BBC .

Print journalists are also under siege. At least two reporters viewed as sympathetic to the opposition have been detained. Other journalists have gone into hiding, and the authorities took into custody two journalists' mothers as a pressure tactic.